Law enforcement or military personnel are required to make a forcible entry into a room in an apartment or hotel or into a house when it is necessary to make an arrest, rescue or for other purposes. Particularly anti-terrorist teams also need a rapid, safe means of forcing a door, often to save the lives of hostages.
Currently when an arrest of dangerous criminals who have locked themselves inside a room or a house must be made, armed law enforcement personnel surround the room or house and guard every possible exit from the room or house including doors and windows. Then they force the locked door to the room or house manually by crowbar, by kicking the locked door in with their feet or similar means and may enter the room or house with ready weapons in an effort to overcome any resistance to arrest without loss of life. However this is very dangerous procedure because the criminals who may be drug addicts or drug dealers determined to resist arrest by any means are often armed and shoot through the door, which is often only made of wood, to thwart any attempt to force the locked door and to prevent arrest, if they are aware that law enforcement personnel are approaching.
Furthermore some modern locked doors are comparatively strong, made of metal and very difficult to force manually or with a hand-held tool. Conventional means for forcing such a door are often noisy and give the occupants of the room or house advanced warning that the room or house is being entered. This is particularly a problem in hostage-terrorist situations where these conventional means are often too slow.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a door forcing apparatus applicable to a locked door which opens inward and, with the use of accessories, to any locked door.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a door forcing apparatus which is safely operable from a remote location so that the individuals operating it are not required to stand in front of the locked door while the door is being opened.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a mechanical door forcing apparatus which may be used by law enforcement or military personnel to open a locked door without exposing themselves to gun fire from the interior of the locked room or house.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a door forcing apparatus which can open a comparatively strong locked door which can not be forced manually or with a hand-held tool.